The Koetsy Capers

Galway and the Connemara

the_koetsys — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 18:50:00 GMT

Galway. Of all the places in Ireland we have visited, this city stands out. The quintessentially friendly and funny Irish, clean streets, bright and colourful homes and rain were the hallmarks of this place.

As one does when one finds a good place, the compulsory visit to the shopping centre followed. We discovered that prices are marginally cheaper here than in Dublin but the shop staff are infinitely friendlier. But of course, there is the matter of cloudy skies and rain. I am starting to doubt that we will ever see the sun while we are here.

Before we left Australia, our Irish born doctor impressed upon us the necessity to take a look at an area named the Connemara. We can heartily endorse his recommendation. We had breakfast and walked to the car in the rain (again, will this ever stop?) and set off on one of the most scenic drives l have been on. Regretfully the rain restricted our vision, but wild Atlantic seas, lush green and leafy roadways, rocky hills with amazingly calm black faced sheep and miles of stone fences was our stunning vista. We made our way to the National Park with a somewhat forlorn hope of scaling Diamond Hill. The rain had cleared by now (it was 3pm) but we had not been counting on the fog. The peak was completely invisible, shrouded by mist. That, coupled with quite strong winds, was the reason we did not progress beyond the half way point. We could not see the sense in reaching the summit to see nothing but fog.....

I would venture that the Connemara has been the highlight of our Irish adventure so far.

The south west of Ireland

the_koetsys — Thu, 15 Jun 2017 19:24:00 GMT

We were disappointed in Dublin but rural Ireland is altogether different.

We travelled to Cashel to have a look at the Rock of Cashel which is actually an ancient church which looks like a castle. We were fortunate enough to join a group that was being given a guided tour. This was a stroke of luck because we were given quite an education in Irish history we were not expecring. It was also our first exposure to rural Irishmen which was quite a pleasant experience.

From there we travelled to Tipperary to have a look at a town made famous by a song. Whilst the town is pleasant enough, the countryside driving to Tipperary and then on to Cork is picture postcard perfect. Impossibly green rolling hills and hedgerows everywhere. Just as we imagined Ireland would be like.

The next day started by travelling to Blarney Castle so that Gloria could give a piece of stone a kiss. I passed up on the opportunity given the numbers of other people also kissing the same stone. Gloria has not come down with anything. Yet.

The rest of the day was spent driving along the coast, checking out the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula. Both drives reminded me of Scotland with the hills meeting the wild ocean. Quite scenic. The following day was spent looking around Limerick and joining the thousands of tourists at the Cliffs of Mother, a smaller version of the cliffs found along the Great Australian Bight.

Certainly the Ring of Kerry and the Dingle Peninsula was worth a look, but one has to be careful of the narrow roads clogged by very slow driving tourists. We saw a bit of risk taking by drivers frustrated by the slow ones, but the buses are a real hazard. We drove around one corner to find a bus occupying most of our side of the road. Those who say that your life flashes before your eyes when you think your time is up are lying. How we missed the bus is a mystery, l doubt if there was a cigarette paper between the side mirror and the bus. The problem was that there was nowhere to go because there was a stone wall on the left, so it was either a stone wall or a bus. Somehow we missed both.......

All expletives were removed in writing this story, but you can imagine my language.

Dublin

the_koetsys — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 07:19:00 GMT

We were not sure what to expect from Dublin as everything we hear about Ireland is about how green and beautiful it is. Dublin is neither green nor beautiful.

After checking in at our apartment, we decided to go and explore the city. As we walked down the street, all we encountered were unhappy and scowling people. It was not until we crossed the river and stumbled upon the Temple Bar area that people seemed to be happy. As it turned out, these people were mainly tourists.

We returned to the apartment somewhat downcast about what we had experienced and decided that when in Ireland, one should do what the locals do and head for the pub. Of course, if you are in Ireland, you must try the Guinness. I had been assured that Guiness was "mother's milk" and was quite interested to see the difference between draught Guinness and our usual fare from the imported cans. It was a different beer - rather creamy and light in flavour which probably explains why Gloria was able to drink her pint despite her aversion to beer. I prefer my stout bitter, strong and heavy so l was not so impressed on my first taste. I thought I should have another pint to confirm my first opinion. And a third just to make sure. I'm not sure what time we got to bed...

The next day, after a lengthy lay in, we set off for Trinity College. We noticed that the crowds were much thinner and far happier. We decided that Friday night was the night the locals went out, although we still saw some of the scowling people.

I can thoroughly recommend a visit to Trinity. The Book of Kells was very interesting and those with a bent on ancient history would be impressed. Then we progressed to the Long Room section of the Old Library. My librarian partner was in her element and l have to admit that I was impressed too. Thousands of old books on dozens and dozens of shelves. Gloria's smile had to be seen to be believed.

From there onto the picturesque At Stephen's Green, a welcome piece of green, water and trees in a fairly drab city that we have seen so far. We wandered around and came across Peter's Pub. The obligatory photos followed by a drink at the bar of course.

The next day we went to the Guinness Storehouse. The fee to go in was €20 each so we decided to pass. Whoever owns Guinness is on a tidy little earner as the Storehouse has over a million visitors a year. You can do the math.

As we meandered around we stumbled across a mediaeval church. St Audoen's Church is a hidden gem that apparently the locals don't know much about! Check it out on Google.

Overall, we found Dublin disappointing as a tourist destination, although if you like nightlife then Temple Bar will be for you. Whilst we did meet some very cheerful Irish people who made us laugh, the majority seemed to have a large chip on their shoulders.

Let's hope regional Ireland fits the popular image we hold of the country.........

Harry Potter and the Last Hurrah

the_koetsys — Fri, 9 Jun 2017 18:03:00 GMT

After driving along the extraordinarily scenic west side of Loch Ness on our way to Fort William, we took a detour to a place named Glenfinnan to view the Glenfinnan Viaduct. This particular viaduct has been made famous by the Harry Potter films. As now seems normal in Scotland, we arrived to be greeted by throngs of people who had arrived by the busloads.

We decided to climb a hill located immediately behind the visitor centre to gain a better view unobstructed by trees. Our timing was poor as the steam train chugged across the viaduct when we were a mere 30 meters from the crest of the hill - neither of us could scramble up the slippery slope quickly enough to obtain the classic Harry Potter photo.

After Fort William we progresed to the Glen Coe area to take in vistas that were much like those that we saw in the northern highlands - sensational. From there, we made our way to Stirling via Loch Lomond. The Scots must have migrated to Australia due to their weather because there is no way that they left the country due to its scenery. The drive along Lochs Ness and Lomond are as pretty as anything we saw in Switzerland or Austria.

Somehow we managed to squeeze in a visit to Stirling Castle before retiring to our accommodation for the night - Broomhall Castle - with a 4 poster bed, bath and the largest hotel type room l have seen. My princess was suitably impressed, particularly after a very pleasant meal downstairs.

The next day we awoke once again to rain and more rain....... A visit to the Falkirk Wheel resulted in us watching the wheel elevate a boat from one level to another in the relative dryness of the cafe. From there on to Glasgow in the pouring rain, sharing a motorway with cars speeding at a rather stupid 70 miles per hour. We somehow managed to leave the motorway earlier than we should have and consequently drove around in ever decreasing circles until our GPS announced that we had reached the centre of Glasgow. Disappointingly we didn't sight anything that would tempt us from the comfort of the car. It seemed like any other modern city although the weather made sure that our opportunities to explore the place were effectively zero.

Given it was early afternoon and the car had to be returned, we decided to cut our losses and head to Edinburgh. What should have been a short trip of around a hour took more than two hours. The teeming rain ensured that the trip along the motorway would be a nerve wracking one. Every country has idiots on the road and Scotland is no different. For those folk familiar with Melbourne traffic, the nearest analogy is probably driving the ring road at 5pm, surrounded by trucks on all sides and a one in 10 year rainfall event. The stress levels were extreme as tbe idiots flew past at speed - my wipers were having problems coping with the downpour and l was having trouble seeing at 45 - 50 mph, their ability to see anything at 70 - 80 mph must have been almost zero. My nightmare was made worse by the fact that the water laying on the road surface made the painted lines and words almost invisible and the GPS is always slightly behind your actual position. The roundabouts can have 4 or 5 lanes with some lanes being specific to the street or road that l sought and on occasion l found myself doing circlework at some roundabouts and unintended route variations at others. An interesting drive.....

So it's farewell Scotland, we hope to be back again.

Likes -

The people and the amazing landscape. Their sense of humour and friendliness.

Dislikes -

The rain and ridiculous prices. There does not appear to be cheap whisky in Scotland and most prices for goods appear be pitched at tourists. Fuel is around $2.50 per litre.

Despite the prices, it's a part of the world well worth visiting. We loved it.......

The North Coast 500

the_koetsys — Wed, 7 Jun 2017 05:06:00 GMT

I discovered the North Coast 500 route quite by accident whilst scouring the internet for places to visit and roads to travel in the north of Scotland.

The route takes you on a clockwise circuit of north Scotland, commencing and finishing in Inverness. The roads range from quite good highways to single lane roads with passing points. The condition of the roads also varies with many not in a great state of repair. Sometimes the roads have you feeling as if you are on a rollercoaster such are the peaks and troughs in the road surface.

A s we were hoping, the scenery was absolutely spectacular. On this trip, we found ourselves not only looking at these magnificent hills, but driving up and through them. There were views of the sea and the quite rugged coastline, along with sandy and rocky beaches. Little coastal villages, the occasional castle And more whitewashed houses than you can impossibly imagine. Flowering rhododendrons of purple and pink dot the landscape in every direction which made us think that they must be native to Scotland. These were the shrubs we noticed on the Isle of Skye.

I had encountered great difficulties in obtaining accommodation for this part of the trip and given the number of people we encountered on the roads, it was little wonder. Even more surprising was the number of cyclists we saw, mostly in low gear scaling the hills. Motorcycles were extraordinarily common and it was not unusual to round a corner and find a group of cars, motorcycles and bikes all pulled up and gazing out at another stunning view.

This expedition also provided us with one of the most memorable hotel stays on any of our trips.

Bettyhill is a village located on the north coast. The Farr Bay Inn is around 200 years old and looks its age. A coat of paint would not go astray. When we arrived, l wondered aloud what l had brought Gloria to. The entrance to the Inn was unkempt and overgrown and initially looked very univiting. However, l was greeted by the male half of the owners and he was clearly a person with a sense of humour. Shortly thereafter l met his wife who greeted me very warmly and personably. A quick inspection revealed a small bar, small dining room and a quite comfortable room for us to retire to.

There are no prizes for guessing what we did after depositing our cases in our room - straight to the bar to unwind after a day in the car. The Inn only has 4 rooms and only 1 of those rooms joined us, along with 5 locals. A night of conversation and laughter eventuated. We discovered how friendly and hospitable the Scots can be......

The only down side we could identify was the rain. It started slowly and rained non stop for two days. The jokes and lines around Scottish summers continue unabated.

Isle of Skye

the_koetsys — Sun, 4 Jun 2017 08:23:00 GMT

I would have liked to have titled this story "Blue Blue Skye" but given the brooding dark clouds and bursts of rain, it didn't seem quite right.

Allow me to tell you that this place is breathtakingly beautiful.

Unfortunately, it seems that the rest of the universe has discovered that too. The numbers of people driving and walking around the Isle had to be seen to be believed. We only found respite from the crowds when we made our way up to the far north of the island.

My first stop was at the whisky distillery of Talisker. At ten pounds to tour the distillery, coupled with bottles of whisky with a price tag substantially higher than back at home, l decided that there were better things to see and do. While l'm writing about whisky, l was quite disappointed with the pricing of bottles in Scotland and the cost of a small tot in a pub generally runs at £4 or around $8. I'm better off to have my tastings at home. I suspect that the pricing has quite a deal to do with the tourist season, but l might be wrong.

Anyway, back to singing the praises of the Isle of Skye.

The 'mountains' are really hills of around 500 to 950 feet. However they rise quite steeply and are very rugged and they certainly tower over you. They have an indescribable beauty of their own and, as we discovered, photos do them no justice at all.

Lunch was taken at the Stein Inn, located at the north end of the Isle. Apparently the building dates back to around 1790 and some of the building does look quite old. It is reputed to be the oldest pub on Skye and consequently we just had to go and visit.

We attempted to walk around Portree which is the largest town on Skye, but the rain eventually defeated us. That was a pity because what we saw from the car really impressed us.

Other than the towering and bald hills, the other thing that impressed us was the greeness of the place and the flowering shrubs of purple and pink flowers. Not sure what they were, but we will find out.

If you ever get the chance, visit Skye. You will not regret it......

The Loch Ness Monster

the_koetsys — Sat, 3 Jun 2017 16:38:00 GMT

Rather than drive around Loch Ness, we decided to take a cruise for about an hour. Well worth it as the commentary on the boat was very informative. I can also tell you that a south south west wind blowing down the Loch has one reaching for thick coats.

I thought l saw something in the water and informed Gloria that l had just seen the monster. No, she said, the only monster l saw was my own reflection in the water......

Next is exploration of the Isle of Skye with a detour to the Eileen Conan castle at Cornish.

Castling

the_koetsys — Sat, 3 Jun 2017 15:35:00 GMT

This part of our journey is designated as the castle exploration phase. Potentially three days of inspecting some of Scotland's myriad castles.

We travelled to the car rental headquarters to pick up our car, only to discover that our special order for any vehicle but a station wagon had seemingly been ignored. This was made worse by the fact that the luggage screen was broken which voided our travel insurance had somebody broken into the vehicle. After some discussion with the manager, it turns out that it was a language issue where small estate wagons are very definitely classified as cars - they had taken the request to mean that we didn't want a SUV. Apparently what we needed was a saloon car! After some time we managed to secure a hatchback which was able to accommodate our luggage and we took off in search of the castles.

We decided that we would call in and visit an extremely attractive village named Dunkeld but about 10 miles from there the rain started. Rain is not really the correct description. Teeming is probably too weak as well. It poured. The desicion to continue to Aberdeen was easily made but the rain simply didn't stop. It was our introduction to the perils of touring Scotland. Rain in some form of another seems to be a constant here.

Scotland, like much of the UK is full of castles of varying sizes, shapes and repair. The area around Aberdeen is known as the Castle Trail and for good reason as there are quite a few there They can be privately owned or they can be in the care of organisations such as the National Trust Scotland. Either ownership does not seem to matter to the hordes of people who visit them, including the busloads of tourists or schoolchildren. I swear that some of those thousands of people l saw at Edinburgh Castle l then saw at some of the other castles. We also discovered that some castles are closed on week days which seemed a bit odd and a little galling when you drove down a lane and found the thing shut.

We did take the time to drop in to see Lizzie and Phil at Balmoral but they must have heard we were coming because they were not home. I do understand why they love to go there though, because the countryside is stunning. Whilst you understandably cannot enter the castle proper, other than the ballroom, you can wander the grounds and gardens at leisure and that alone was worth the drive. However after calling in at 8 castles over the 3 days, we were castled out.....

Next stop is Inverness and Loch Ness.

Edinburgh - the Venice of the UK

the_koetsys — Wed, 31 May 2017 16:36:00 GMT

Is it a strange title? I suppose so, but why l titled this story as such will become evident soon enough.

Like many European cities, Edinburgh had an old town and a more modern, larger part.

The city is dominated by the castle which can be seen from much of the old town and is only occasionally obscured by other buildings. The old town is a very attractive place full of old buildings and history. Aesthetically it was a very pleasing place and well worth visiting.

As any traveller/tourist should, we visited the castle to see what all the fuss was about. The first thing that struck us was the size of the area where the tattoo is held each year. On television it looks quite large but we were struck by how much smaller it really is. That was not to say that it was tiny, but nowhere near as large as we were expecting. As expected, the views of the city were spectacular. However what really struck us was the size of the crowds.....

After striking the school holiday crush a few years ago, we have since made a point of establishing each countries school holidays and planning our activities to avoid those times. Of course, l looked at the UK term dates and made our preparations accordingly. What l didn't check was the Scottish school dates - if l had l would have discovered a small holiday named the mid term break which lasts for just one week and coincides with the Bank Holiday. So we had a public holiday and school holidays to contend with. Couple that with an influx of international visitors visiting Scotland when it isn't cold and you have crowds that resemble Venice in July. It was extraordinary to say the least. Some later research revealed that Edinburgh is the most visited city in the UK bar London. Apparently the Edinburgh Castle has over a million people visit each year and it felt like most of them were there on the day we were there.....

As we discovered, the street that leads to/from the castle is locally called the Royal Mile. It literally has dozens of expensive tourist shops and the footpath is quite narrow so the pedestrian congestion is amazing. And so was the congestion at the castle......

I suppose the highlight was the Scottish Crown Jewels which comprise of an impressive crown with red ermine bonnet, a sword and a sceptre. The wait to see the exhibition was in a very long queue that was 20 minutes long. The wait for a simple cup of coffee was, we were told by a staff member, 25 minutes or more. We decided to deprive our bodies of caffeine until we could find a barista away from the castle and crowds.

We tired of the crowds after a couple of hours and decided to explore the nooks and crannies of the old town. There are quite a few old and narrow alleys, many with plaques detailing the history around them. After some time, my tour leader decided that she required some time to undertake the obligatory shopping in a foreign city. My belief that shops were fairly similar the world over was confirmed by this time spent browsing and buying.

Tomorrow we start our exploration of castles in the Aberdeen area. I'm hoping the crowds will have declined by then.....

British Airways and Novatel

the_koetsys — Wed, 31 May 2017 02:46:00 GMT

Every trip starts with an expectation of adventure. Perhaps adventure is not an appropriate description of the circumstances that befell us on this occasion.

As many would be aware, British Airways had an IT malfunction that saw BA flights cancelled all over the world on May 27. We were caught like many thousands by this but we were probably luckier than most......however the knock-on events left a bitter taste for the next few days.

We arrived at Heathrow to find an enormous crowd at Immigration. We had no idea why the queue was so long and it took two hours to reach the Immigration desk. It was here that we learned that all those poor souls who had checked in and made their way into the lounges to wait for their flights had to go through Immigration to get out of the airport when their flights were cancelled. It was also particularly galling to see the UK/EU desks virtually deserted but staffed and thousands queuing to pass through Immigration. We collected our suitcases which by now had been removed from the carousels and placed in random spots around the baggage pickup area. From there we made our way to the BA domestic terminal where it was confirmed that our flight was cancelled.

We approached a lady from BA who told us that we should return home, monitor the BA website and return only when we knew we had a flight available. When we responded that was not possible as we had just arrived from Australia, the reply was a very curt "l'm sorry" accompanied by a shrug of the shoulders. When asked about hotels we were told to find our own. No help or assistance was offered in any form.

We retreated for a cup of coffee to consider our next step. Trawling the internet revealed that few hotels were available, almost certainly occupied by other distraught and distressed BA customers. A check of the hotels around Kings Cross where we normally stay saw that price gouging had commenced. Hotels that normally charged £100 to £120 were now charging £350 to £400. Australian readers should note that these charges are in ££s not $$s. We were looking at $700 to $800 for a stay of one night. We eventually found a hotel at Canary Wharf for £180 and booked that.

I attempted to contact Novatel to tell them that we could not make it tonight. The number l called was an Indian call centre ( that was what the lady said when l asked where she was) and she put me on hold for so long that l eventually hung up. It probably wasn't that important as l had prepaid the room some months ago.

We bumped into a Heathrow Airport volunteer who gave us much more information and assistance than the BA staff - we were very grateful. He thought it may be a few days before things were back to normal and he thought that we should seek alternative transport to Edinburgh, perhaps the train.

We eventually made our way to the hotel after multiple train changes and ate a very late dinner. After checking the BA website, we decided to book the train to Edinburgh.

We arrived at the station and put our luggage in the guards cabin and we tried to board the 9am train. It was so full we took our cases off and waited for the next train in 1/2 an hour. Despite being one of the first on the train, we could not find a seat as nearly every seat was reserved. We stood for nearly three hogurs until some seats became available as passengers left the train. Apparently the east coast line was closed and passengers who would normally travel to places such as Glasgow were on this train as well as people impacted by the BA disaster. After nearly five hours we arrived in Edinburgh and made our way to the hotel.

I announced that l had booked a room and gave my name. The response was breathtaking to say the least.

The hotel had decided that we were a "no show" and had relet our room despite the fact that l had already paid for the room some months ago. This message was delivered in a very aggressive fashion and the receptionist had not heard about the BA disaster and she could not have cared less. When I explained that l had tried to ring she demanded to see the number l had called. She said that the number was not their direct dial and we should have rung that. We didn't have that number. She also denied receiving the email l had sent earlier that morning from the hotel in London. My patience had started to run out and l wanted to know what they were going to do with my money that I had paid. At this point her attitude softened a little and she asked us to sit in the bar while she made some enquiries.

She eventually returned and she said that she was trying to find alternative accommodation. She offered us a drink from the bar while she continued to look for that accommodation.She returned after a few minutes and said that she was able to find that alternative accommodation. They paid for a taxi to take us there - which they should have anyway.

This was a nightmare start to our trip and BA and Novatel are not customer focused - l would never recommend either to anybody.

Mellow Munchen

the_koetsys — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 18:12:00 GMT

Sunday 22 June to Tuesday 24 June 2014

Our last major destination on this trip - I write this in our hotel in Frankfurt after leaving Munchen this afternoon, as we catch a plane in the morning to commence our trip home (insert sad face here)

Munchen is much like the other German cities we have seen. Clearly newer than the other European cities although this one has an older feel about it, mainly because it was reconstructed to look much like it did before it was bombed. Having said that, some of the churches appear to have also largely escaped the bombing, as was the case in the other German cities.

Munchen is regarded as the city in which the Nazis gained power and Hitler spent a lot of time there.

We didn't arrive until late afternoon on Sunday, and as we discovered with the other German and Austrian cities, nothing is open on a Sunday except for the street stalls and cafes. Consequently we just walked around and looked at buildings although Gloria did some window shopping. The street we were in was clearly going to be busy tomorrow because it seemed that all the major retail chains had stores there. And so it came to pass.......

The next day, after some retail therapy was taken, we headed in the direction of the Hofbrauhaus (one of the beer halls) and we were treated to an episode of Keystone Cops, German style. We could hear sirens wailing and they sounded as if they were coming down our street. Soon enough a police car emerged from the traffic and, at the corner we were standing on, turned left on two wheels, swerving at the same time. We were sure it would roll, but somehow it didn't. We were treated to the same spectacle twice more - once from the opposite direction and once from the same direction as the original car. The 4th car didn't have to turn, it just went through the intersection flat out. All 4 cars were within 90 seconds from first to last and whatever the problem was, it was urgent. The driver training looked a little suspect to us.

When we arrived at the beer hall, we spied the Hard Rock Cafe opposite and decided a coffee to start would be a good idea. That turned into an American hamburger lunch, something we had not had before. It wasn't too bad either, with a rather interesting tomato sauce served on the side. It had chilli and something else infused in it and was quite tasty.

The beer hall was tackled next, comp!ete with the ompah Bavarian band. The noise drove us out into the beer garden where WE had a beer each. Gloria didn't drink much of hers so Grumps volunteered to finish it off for her. The walk back to the hotel took a lot longer and covered more distance than it took us this morning!!

On the issue of hotels, this one was an unexpected surprise. It had a kitchenette. In fact, it was substantially superior to the apartment in Krakow and it even had a dishwasher !!!

No washing machine or dryer though, but the kitchenette was a huge surprise. We couldn't buy groceries on Sunday, so we settled for a German meal of sausages, sauerkraut and a little bit of salad. Not going out for a meal last night was strangely gratifying and ridiculously cheaper.

We had a quick look around Frankfurt after checking into our hotel. It seems a very modern and bustling city with quite a few (lots actually) immigrants, as was the case with Munich. Unfortunately, there is a lot of rubbish blowing around the streets which really makes the place seem untidy.

The holiday is finished, it's time to come home. Bye Europe.

Impressive Innsbruck

the_koetsys — Sun, 22 Jun 2014 11:15:00 GMT

Thursday 19 June - Saturday 21 June 2014

Switzerland has Interlaken, Austria has Innsbruck.

Both places are visually sensational.

Soaring snow capped mountains are to be seen in every direction here, and it is just beautiful. It is one hell of a contrast to the Mallee and the greenness has to be seen to be appreciated - or understood.

As was the case with Wien and Salzburg, the city is quite flat as it is situated in a river valley. However the mountains start to rise in the suburbs and you can see homes nestled into the hillsides from the centre of the city. The old town is not very large and is easily got around in a day, but there are plenty of attractions and we certainly didn"t see them all. But we did do two things of note.

We decided to check out the Olympic ski jump and perhaps have lunch at the restaurant located at the top of the ski jump. We also decided, that on our way to the ski jump, to find the tram stop that would take us to Patscherkofel the next day as that stop was located close to the ski jump, which incidently is named Bergisel. Well, we looked and we looked. We pulled out our map a dozen times to check for the supposed location, but we could not find it. We gave up and headed for Bergisel.

We paid our money and entered through the turnstile and checked out the bottom of the jump, at the "landing strip" It was covered with fake plastic grass giving it a rather odd look. I glanced up towards the tower to see a bloke on skis push himself out onto the starting position. By absolute sheer luck and extraordinary timing, we were about to watch a practice jump. The fake grass was some sort of matting designed for the purpose of replicating snow I suppose. We watched with our mouths open and cameras set on movie as this fella took off down the ski jump and landed perfectly, quite close to us. I still think they are quite mad, it looks a dangerous sport.

We made our way to the top station of the jump by way of a funicular and peered down the jump. Yes, they are quite mad.

We made our way up to the restaurant, perched up some 50 metres above the ground. Those who know Grumps will know that the vertigo kicks in for him at about 6 feet - here he was at 150 feet and his head was spinning.

We sat down in the restaurant, Gloria by the window and Grumps at the other end of the table, some 4 feet from the window. We ordered coffee and food and then Gloria noticed that a table at the front of the restaurant had become available, so we moved over there. The window was slanted outwards and Grumps swore that the floor was on a lean. Gloria laughed as poor old Grumps had started to lean in the opposite direction and his knuckles were white from gripping the table. And he still sat as far from the window as he possibly could... Never the less, the view over Innsbruck was brilliant. We could even see the sister tram to that one we were looking for, but still couldn't see the one we were looking for, even perched up where we were. After lunch, Gloria relented and we returned to terra firma, where Grumps knelt and kissed the ground in the style of Pope John-Paul II.

We resumed our search for the tram stop to find out from a tram driver that it was at the tram stop we were standing at except it was about 10 metres away on the other side of a small grassy park. The bloody map had it behind buildings on the other side of the street!

The next day was one where Grumps was able to tick one off his bucket list.

We caught the elusive tram to a place named Igls where we caught a cable car that took us about 4/5ths of the way up Patscherkofel. From there, we trudged up a steep dirt track/road that took us to the summit. Getting to Patscherkofel had been something I had wanted to do since I started to ski as a primary school child. Grumps had a smile from ear to ear. Gloria did not as it took about a hour and a half to walk up that track.

The views of Innsbruck and the number of valleys that we could see was absolutely sensational and Gloria wore out her camera taking photos. There was even one of Grumps in snow at Patscherkofel (yes, it was a dirty old snow drift, but it was Patscherkofel snow!)

If you love sensational views, mountains and mild weather in summer, then Innsbruck is a must see place. It has become Grumps' second favourite place, after Interlaken, which is only leading by a short half head....

Next stop - Munich.

Salzburg

the_koetsys — Wed, 18 Jun 2014 16:21:00 GMT

Tuesday 17 June - Wednesday 18 June 2014

I was going title this story Saucy Salzberg. Opposite the hotel is a turkish bakery and next to that is a very gaudy and very loud visually sex shop. I can hear the inevitable question from here. No, I did not visit the sex shop and neither did Gloria - the Turkish bakery was much more interesting and very tasty!

The train from Wien was a fast train called a Railjet that plodded along at 200 km/hr. As usual, we passed through hills rather than going around them until we were on the other side of Linz where we slowed appreciably to go around the hills rather than through them. And as is becoming quite usual, the scenery is typically un Australian with lots of green trees and grass, although disappointly we did not see much for quite a deal of the journey due to earthern mounds or steel fences often running parallel to the rail line, presumably acting as sound barriers.

Salzburg was not what I expected. The terrain is reasonably flat although the mountains are quite visible nearby. I was expecting much more hilly terrain, but l suppose that is a perception I had of Austria, all mountains and short days. Wrong !

Salzberg's old town is similar to the other old towns although some buildings seemed older. Certainly some of the churches had an old feel about them. The old town is very small, so it did not take long to walk around it.

The major attraction in Salzberg is the Festung Hohensalzburg or Salzberg Fortress, and it is worth a visit if only for the spectacular panoramic view of the city from the viewing platform at the top of the fortress. Apparently construction of the fortress started in 1077, although there is practically nothing left of that now - the fortress has been expanded over the centuries and much of it is quite old. When we first saw it, it reminded us of the Acropolis, becuae it is perched up on this big rock. Apparently, the fortress was never taken by force, although it was surrendered to Napoleon without a fight!

There are quite a few buildings that hail from the middle ages and the old town has cobblestones still.

The other places we visited were Mozart's birthplace and his residence. The birthplace was really interesting, the residence much less so

Salzberg uses Mozart as its signature for tourism. Everywhere you go you can buy Mozart souvenirs and even Mozart chocolate. What makes this a little hilarious is that Mozart hated Salzburg and left as sson as he could - the birthplace and residence is all about his childhood - he lived in other places, predominately Vienna, but spent a lot of time touring Europe. Something that we didn't know was that he married and had six children Only two of those children survived and they never married, so there are no direct descendants of Mozart.

As we were walking back to the hotel on Tuesday evening, we could hear orchestral music so we walked towards it. We discovered a youth orchestra of about 25 young people, who we assumed to be music students of one of Salzberg's universities, playing in the gardens behind the Mirabella palace. We sat on the grass for nearly an hour and enjoyed a wonderful free concert, with the orchestra just 5 metres away from us. It turned out that it was a group of kids from Salt Lake City who were doing a tour of Europe and we just stumbled on them. It was probably the highlight of the trip so far.

Tomorrow Innsbruck, the home of 2 Winter Olympics.

Viva Vienna

the_koetsys — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 05:25:00 GMT

Saturday 14 June to Monday 16 June 2014

Arrived in Wien after another long day on trains. To get here, we had to take the return journey from Krakow to Katowice. This time, we were in a modern, comfortable train. It didn't go any faster though as the 80 kilometre trip still took 2 hours. After catching the connecting train at Katowice, we had to catch another connecting train at Breclav and we discovered that there was only six minutes between trains. At one stage we were behind schedule and visions of missing the train made an appearance yet again. Somehow, we made up time and were able to safely make the train and progress to Wein.

I had booked another hotel not far from the station. There were more disappointments in store..

In the cities l have visited, the station where the train terminates is usually reasonably close to the city centre. In Melbourne, think of Spencer Street or Flinders Street. In every city we have visited in Europe, this has been the case. But not in Wein.

We found ourselves quite some distance from the city and in a place that could be politely described as one of a lower socio-economic area. When we left our hotel to find somewhere to eat, for the first time on our journeys I felt genuinely unsafe. We were later to discover that we had turned in the wrong direction from our hotel which seemed to straddle the boundary between the haves and the have nots.

Wien has a public transport system, particularly underground rail, that I think is the best I have come across. It is fast, efficient, on time and well patronised - and why wouldn't it be! Gee, the Premier and Lord Mayor should send a delegation here and learn how to do it from the experts. It would be taxpayers money well spent.

The old city centre is yet another example of what I might describe as a classical old European city. There is a similarity starting to emerge between the old cities such as Paris, Praha, Krakow and Wien. Similar, but certainly not the same. Each city has it's own character and style and even the churches are different in each city, but a similarity exists all the same.

Like Praha, Wien is a musical city. Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert and Strauss are all buried here and there are numerous concerts being held every night of the week. There were people dressed as composers seemingly on most corners and ALWAYS outside churches trying to sell you tickets to concerts.

The old city seems full of palaces, museums and churches. The town hall (Rathaus) is the most impressive town hall we have seen and there are gardens or parks everywhere. Even the Goevernment buldings (ministries) are impressive, as is Parliment. Unfortunately, most of the buildings (including churches) levy a charge for admittance or, in the case of the government buildings, you just can't get in.

On the matter of churches, we saw two worth commenting on. Karlskirche was a spectacularly different building. It had the now usual green coloured copper dome that most European churches have, but it also had these two spiralling columns adorned with reliefs of all sorts of things mediaeval carved into them. Unfortunately it was a church that charged to enter so we didn't go in. Stephansdom, the main cathedral in the old city had an unusual multicoloured tiled roof that was so steep I doubt if much snow would stay there very long. The lead light windows inside the church are a predominately two coloured check design for about 80% of the window before the usual religious displays at the top of the windows. This had the effect of allowing quite a deal of natural light into the church, more than I have ever seen before.

We did try to visit the Imperial Palace or Hof, but it seemed impossible to navigate so we gave up in the finish.

Wien is one of those places where you could spend a week and hundreds of dollars visiting churches, museums and palaces if that is your interest. The one thing we did notice was that Wien is an expensive city, although out in the suburbs it is a bit cheaper. We had trouble finding places to eat, except for expensive restaurants in the city. If pizza, kebabs and sports bars are your go, you will be in heaven here. There is quite a multicultural population here, largely based out of northern Africa and the middle East.

It was a city worth visiting......and we could have spent more time here, slowly savoury the sights.

Holy Krakow !

the_koetsys — Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:35:00 GMT

Wednesday 11 June to Friday 13 June 2014

Our primary reason for visiting Krakow was to visit Auschwitz, but as we discovered, there is far more to Krakow than that.

After spending most of our day travelling by train from Prague, we finally arrived at our accommodation at 6.30 pm. For something different, l had booked an apartment so that we could have some home cooked meals and do our laundry at a leisurely pace. That was the plan anyway....

We were so sorely disappointed when we opened the door. The apartment looked nothing like the pictures of it that l saw when l booked it. It lacked a washing machine, dryer, table and chairs, microwave, tea towels, toaster, dishcloth, frypan, oven, griller, exhaust fans in kitchenette or bathroom, smoke alarms, bathmat, facewashers, handtowels, vegetable peeler, tongs and there was one cake of the tiniest soap l had ever seen. It did have a kettle, knives, forks, spoons, p!ates, sweet bowls, wooden spoon, sharp kitchen knife and plastic cutting board. To cook, there were two small hotplates. I suppose we could have made vegetable soup or porridge, but that was about it. Oh, it did have a bed and a couch, as well as towels !

After Auschwitz, we set off to explore the city and were pleasantly surprised to find that this was another city full of old buildings. The city square was the biggest we had seen - it was enormous. There were the now usual city gates and seemingly more old churches than any other city we had been to. This seemed to be reinforced by the fact that we saw more nuns than we saw in Rome - they were everywhere! Priests and monks were around as well, but in nothing like the same numbers as the nuns.

A number of the churches were quite large and ornate, but the one that fascinated us was the tiny one in the city square. I doubt if 50 people could have fitted in!

The Wawel Castle is impressive and the views of the city from there are quite good.

We also called into Oscar Schindler's factory. Not unexpectedly, we paid to go in where we expected some sort of a display or exhibition about the man and his saving of so many people during the war. Instead, we got an exhibition of the occupation of Krakow during WWII. While this was interesting, it wasn't what we had come to see. We eventually found two rooms dedicated to Schindler and l managed to sneak a couple of photos of Gloria sitting at what we were fervently assured was Schindler's office desk. The desk was certainly old enough to be his.

Other than the apartment, our Krakow experience was worthwhile and a place l would certainly recommend as a worthwhile visit, but getting there by Polish train does take a while !

Auschwitz

the_koetsys — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 18:51:00 GMT

Thursday 12 June 2014

Generally our blog describes the happy incidents, the scenery, the food and most things great about travel.

Not today.

We travelled by minibus to Oswiecim to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp. It turns out that Auschwitz is the German name for the town of Oswiecim.

When we arrived, we discovered that people entering the camp between 10am & 3pm must take a guided tour around the camp. We were not happy about this, but it was the best possible thing we could have done. Not only did we have a guide who could explain what happened at various sites around the camp, the sheer size of the complex, including Auschwitz-Birkenau, was too big for us to get around and understand what we were looking at.

I will not bore you with descriptions of what we saw, with a couple of exceptions.

There were not any graphic photos of deceased people. There didn't need to be.

There were displays of people's personal belongings, such as hairbrushes and combs. Suitcases with names and addresses painted on them, left as people undressed to have 'showers' which they never had.

Shoes and boots, and most tellingly and difficult to deal with, childrens and toddlers shoes.

These animals even executed little children and babies.

The lsraeli army was there for some sort of a commemoration, l'm not sure what. We saw them march into Auschwitz-Birkenau with both a steely determination and sadness in their eyes. It must have been difficult for them, but also cathartic.

It's a sad and emotional place and l found myself shaking my head in disbelief several times.

We are never going back there, but it was one hell of an experience.

A train from Prague to Krakow

the_koetsys — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 22:51:00 GMT

Wednesday 11 June 2014

I promise not to make a habit of writing about train trips, but this one is worth a few words.

We arrived at Prague station to catch our train. The electronic display board showed our train, but not a platform. Given the train was to leave in 5 minutes, this seemed very odd. Suddenly the platform flashed up and a great mass of people instantaneously moved towards that platform. We reached the platform but there was no train, although one appeared within a minute or two.

We clambered on with the rest of the passengers and found our seats. Surprisingly, we were in a compartment, which was not what we had reserved.

The train moved off and the young man sitting next to us started a short conversation in Czech with a woman in our compartment. He didn't sound happy and the woman shrugged her shoulders. He then spoke to us in English, as he had heard us talking earlier. It turned out that this was not the usual train that travels to Ostrava - it was a much older and slower train. Further more, it did not have internet which he was relying on for his work. As he put it, we had all paid for a faster more modern train with internet and we were not getting what we had paid for. It seemed that the usual train had a problem and a replacement had to be found, hence the lateness of being advised of the platform number.

After a while an announcement came through that we would be around 10 minutes late arriving at Ostrava. That meant we would only wait for 20 minutes for our connecting train to Katowice - not a problem!

About 10 minutes later, the train came to a shuddering halt. After a few minutes, an announcement came through that there was a problem with one of the tracks and we had another short delay. Eventually the train slowly moved off and after a few minutes we could see traffic and police cars. A blanket covered a body next to the tracks, not far from a stationary train. The delay was to let trains through in either direction as one of the two lines was obviously blocked.

Soon enough, an announcement was made that we would be 25 minutes late. This was starting to get a little serious in terms of catching our connecting train. Sure enough, about half an hour later, another announcement was made - we were now 35 minutes behind schedule.

The young man in our compartment, who was a very nice young fellow, and with whom we had been conversing for most of the trip, suddenly stood up and left the compartment. He returned with the news that the connecting train was going to wait for our train. Apparently there were quite a few people on our train who were to catch that train.

They organised it well. When we arrived, our connecting train was on the other side of the platform. It was amusing to watch all these people leave one train in a wave and take a few steps and climb on the other train.

When all the passengers had boarded, the train moved off........for about two hundred metres, then stopped. We were in the very front carriage and could see the engine moving off, without the carriages attached to it. They had decided to change engines, even though we were 15 minutes late on this train by now. Eventually another engine arrived and we had an uneventful trip to Katowice.

It was from here that we had to catch our last train from Katowice to Krakow.

Long term Melbourne residents will remember the old red rattler trains. This train was the mother of the red rattlers, except that it had been refurbished with very hard red plastic seats. It is only 80 kilometres from Katowice to Krakow, but it is a 2 hour journey by train. It was so slow it was laughable. Still, we arrived when we were supposed to, so that was one positive.

Another word on scenery. Everything we saw of the Czech Republic from the train was superbly beautiful. Poland started off very nicely, but after a while it became more mundane with patches of great scenery here and there. Still, it was a memorable journey !

Near perfect Prague

the_koetsys — Wed, 11 Jun 2014 06:30:00 GMT

Sunday 8 June to Tuesday 10 June 2014

Arrived in Praha (yep, that is what the Czechs call the city) mid afternoon after one of the most scenic train journeys we have ever had. The section from Berlin to Dresden was typically European - unbelievably green with plenty of forest, farmland and quaint towns. The section from Dresden to Praha mostly followed the Elbe River and it was something we won't forget.

That was just the start of an unforgettable few days.

Our first thoughts were how similar much of old Praha is like Paris - or was it that Paris is like Praha? There are significant differences though; Praha has much more cobblestones and the older buildings look as if they were extracted from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. It is just that so many buildings have a similar facade to that in Paris, although not the same.

Whilst there were the usual suspects of McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Starbucks, there were plenty of eateries offering Czech fare as well as the more familiar dishes such as chicken schnitzel or parmigiana, sirloin steak or salmon.

Like Brugge, Praha is awash with tourists. I have never seen so many souvenir shops or money changers. Oh, did l mention the crystal shops? I suppose that l should not have been surprised by the number of crystal shops; after all we were in the home of Bohemian crystal.

In many streets, the enormous majority of shops were those three enterprises. Shop after shop. Accordingly, prices in the tourist sector are very high, and to make things a little more difficult, the Czech Republic, whilst in the EU, has kept its own currency rather than adopting Euros.

The koruna or crown has an exchange rate of around $1 Aud = 18 crowns. It's fair to say we got confused on a number of occasions on the matter of whether a purchase was good value or not. But that is one of the issues of travel, l suppose.

The Czech Republic was part of communist Czechoslavakia until 1January 1993, but let me tell you it is a fully fledged capitalist economy now. Some churches levy charges to enter and to take a look at the old Jewish cemetery will cost you near enough to $20 (380 crowns) although there is some sort of museum there.

Praha is the sort of place where you just wander around and marvel at the buildings. While we did the usual tourist sites such as the Old Town Square, the Powder Tower, Henry's Bell Tower, Charles Bridge, Praha castle and St Vitus Cathedral, we also just wandered around until our blistered feet could take no more. Adding to the discomfort was some unseasonably high temperatures - officially low 30's but it felt like mid to high 30s in the streets.

Praha is also a musical city. There were street performers everywhere and the majority of those were very good. There also seemed to be a performance by classical artists every night - orchestras, violinists, classical string groups, singers etc etc.

We did try the local fare every night. The 'traditional' Czech dishes contain a small amount of meat, some vegetables, a large amount of gravy or sauce and slices of bread or dumpling. The bread or dumpling is used to soak up the gravy or sauce and it certainly fills you up. Coarse sausages also seem to be popular and you can buy them on the street as a fast food.

As is always the case there are negatives.

1. The smoking. We saw many smokers, more than we had seen in many years and certainly more than we have seen in Paris & Rome. Smoking is allowed in pubs & restaurants, so there is no escaping it. We did not see any ashtrays in the churches, but that was about the only place.

2. Tipping. From an Australian perspective where tipping is rare, this was a different experience. Nothing in the tourist sector of Praha is cheap, but if you eat or drink, you are expected to add another 10%, at least, to your bill. There was no such thing as going to the bar to get a drink, everything is table service. I didn't like being waved away from the bar and told to sit down, that is not customer service.....

Ignoring those two issues, if you don't mind competing for footpath space with the rest of the world's tourists, Praha is a must visit city. It ranks with Paris and Rome for us....

Next city - Krakow

Train journey to Prague from Berlin

the_koetsys — Sun, 8 Jun 2014 23:19:00 GMT

We have been fortunate enough to have seen some remarkable scenery on our train journeys in Europe.

The trip from Berne to Interlaken was terrific, as were sections of the journey of Paris to Lyon and some of the trip to Blois from Paris.

After Dresden, we were treated to a journey along the Elbe River for quite a few kilometres that was very very pretty.

It was picture postcard stuff, with the train winding around the hills as it followed the river.

One side of the river valley had vertical cliffs a little distance from the river, perhaps 200 metres, with trees running from the base of the cliffs to the river (or rather the road that followed the river) with homes nestled among the trees.

After a flat section, and as we got a little closer to Prague, similar scenery developed. We even had castles perched up on top of the cliffs and hills.

It was spectacular.....

Berliner

the_koetsys — Sun, 8 Jun 2014 04:40:00 GMT

Thursday 5 June - Saturday 7 June 2014

Left Brugge at 8am, changed trains at Brussels and onto Koln where we boarded another high speed train, heading for Berlin. This part of the journey l was particularly looking forward to as this was a part of Germany l had not seen before. However, l wasn't to see too much. Our seats were situated in between two windows and all l could see was metal. There was a sliver by of glass adjacent to the seat in front of me that gave me a very narrow of the countryside.

Nevertheless, we arrived in Berlin in the late afternoon / early evening and set about exploring the city.

Much like Koln, the city is very modern due to the fact that the city was basically rebuilt after WWII. As was the case with Koln, the churches largely remained standing as did a number of the older and historically significant structures.

The Brandenburg Gate and the Siegessaule (Victory Column) were two impressive monuments, as was the Berlin Dom and the museums close by.

The Siegessaule is situated roughly in the middle of a park named Tiergarten. It is a spectacular park with areas of forest scattered through it, along with the normal grassy areas. It is apparently around 500 acres (200 hectares) so it's a big park!

The German people seem to acknowledge the atrocities of WWII, however the actions are attributed to the Nazis rather than the German people, which is fair enough because many Germans were persecuted by the Nazis. Consequently, there are memorials to the Jewish people as well as the people we would describe as gypsies, who were also rounded up and gassed in concentration camps. The memorials are sobering places that pull no punches when illustrating what the Nazis did.

We walked a section of the Berlin Wall which was not pulled down and was given over to artists to use as a giant "canvas". All of the work is what l would describe as modern street art although the professional artists amongst us probably have a different description. Sadly, much of the art has been defaced by graffiti which has demeaned the work of the original artists. The theme of the work has been around the fall of the wall and what that meant to Berliners.

From there we walked and trained it to Checkpoint Charlie. Whilst the guardhouse is a replica, one of the street corners nearby, which was once a part of the no-mans-land associated with the wall, has a very informative and sad display about the wall. Sad because it names the people who died trying to cross to West Berlin.

The photos showed a substantial no-mans-land on both sides of the wall, although in some places it seems that buildings effectively formed part of the wall. The East Germans bricked the windows up to prevent people jumping from them into West Berlin. We observed that the no-mans-land has now been filled in by new buildings.

Which brings me to the subject of building cranes. The skyline is littered with them, particularly in the old East Berlin section. The economy certainly appears very active, although there were a lot of street beggars and gypsies trying to con you out of your money.

Berlin would have to be the most 'Americanised' city l have come across - the USA has had a big influence on the culture here, both in food and fashion. The most common retail outlets seem to be Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King and KFC. As a consequence, we didn't see any eateries offering traditional German food, although I'm sure they are around. We eventually did try a currywurst, and although pleasant enough, it is not something we would eat regularly. Having said that, the ones we sampled may have been poor examples as l understand that they are popular in much of Germany.

We enjoyed Berlin but it has limited old buildings and as a tourist it is hard to get excited about 30 year old buildings.

If you were a young man, there are plenty of quite attractive young women to get excited about though. Whilst they do not dress as elegantly as Parisians, there are quite a lot of blue eyed blondes around.

Next stop Prague.